DEA-C01 Data Ingestion and Transformation Practice Question
A data engineer needs to ingest streaming data from thousands of IoT devices into Amazon S3 in near real-time. The data must be processed with minimal latency and stored in a columnar format for analytics. Which service should the engineer use to ingest the data?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Kinesis Data Streams (which requires a consumer like Lambda to write to S3) with Kinesis Data Firehose (which is a fully managed delivery service), leading them to choose Option C because they think they need a Lambda consumer for processing, but Firehose handles the entire ingestion pipeline without custom code.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose is the correct choice because it is designed to ingest streaming data and deliver it directly to Amazon S3 with near-real-time latency (typically 60 seconds or more, depending on buffer settings). It automatically converts data to columnar formats like Parquet or ORC, which is essential for analytics, and requires no custom code for the delivery pipeline, minimizing operational overhead.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics
Why it's wrong here
Used for analyzing streaming data, not for loading to S3.
- ✗
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
Why it's wrong here
Message queue, not designed for high-throughput streaming ingestion to S3.
- ✗
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with a Lambda consumer
Why it's wrong here
Requires custom consumer; not fully managed for S3 delivery.
- ✓
Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose
Why this is correct
Directly loads streaming data to S3 with transformation and columnar format support.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C01 exam.